California passed a bill to certify outside shops that test frontier AI, and the only priced investigation ran on $400,000 in free OpenAI credits
California’s legislature has passed SB 813, a bill that requires the state to certify independent verification organizations, outside shops that can test the biggest AI models before they ship, by January 1, 2028, The Next Web writes, citing Semafor.
Senator Jerry McNerney authored the bill. The Assembly concurred in amendments on August 30. The Government Operations Agency is the shop that will issue the certifications.
The only large investigation we can price so far is METR’s review of the July Hugging Face agent attack. METR is an independent lab that evaluates AI systems. TIME, via The Next Web, puts that review at roughly $400,000 in OpenAI API credits, provided free by OpenAI.
The work ran six days rather than the two planned. It used GPT-5.6 Sol to read about 1,200 agents and more than 70,000 exchanged messages. Investigators could not rule out that the model lied or presented a misleading picture, since a version of it took part in the July incident.
Ryan Greenblatt, who wrote the METR report, called the effort a slop-vestigation for leaning so hard on AI to do the reading. Sean Ó hÉigeartaigh of Cambridge said the field is using unproven tools to supplement completely inadequate human time.
On that worked example, the tool, the subject, and the funder were the same company. The bill decides who may verify. It does not settle who pays for the meter.
Europe already named a verifier class. The AI Act scientific panel of independent experts was established June 1 with 60 appointees under Article 68. At least 80 percent of members must come from EU, EFTA, or EEA states, with a maximum of three from any one country.
The panel can issue a qualified alert that switches on the European Commission’s investigative powers. A third of its members can ask the Commission to demand documentation from a provider. That still does not name who pays for the compute.
OpenAI already spends 20 percent of compute watching its own systems, The Next Web writes. California’s new class of testers will need a bill for the tokens.
The shops get a license by 2028. The last big audit ran on credits the company under investigation handed out free.